Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether students taking (a) GCSEs and (b) A-levels in the 2020-21 academic year will receive centre assessed grades; and what plans his Department has to provide a mechanism by which Ofqual can adjust those grades.

The Government remains clear that exams are the fairest method to assess students. Given the further disruption, however, the Department cannot guarantee that all students will be in a position to sit their exams fairly this summer. GCSE, AS and A levels will not go ahead as planned.

The Department has already confirmed our proposals that in summer 2021 pupils taking GCSE, AS and A levels regulated by Ofqual should be awarded grades based on an assessment by their teachers. Ofqual and the Department launched a consultation on the evidence needed to inform teachers’ assessments of their students’ grades, including providing externally set papers to support their assessments.

Teachers will be provided with training and guidance to support them, balancing flexibility with the need to make sure grades are valid and consistent. To further support this, the consultation also proposes that exam boards should both provide information for schools and colleges to inform their own quality assurance, and that the exam boards themselves should undertake checks of schools’ and colleges’ processes and the evidence for the grades submitted. We have proposed that changes to teachers’ grades should be the exception and will only be if the grade could not legitimately have been given based on the evidence. The Department proposes that all students will have a route to appeal their grades.

Ofqual and the Department are working at pace to provide further clarity to the sector and will publish the outcome of the consultation as soon as possible.